Developer 'SKMP' is working hard to bring Grand Theft AUto 3 to its original home, the infamous SEGA Dreamcast.
With nearly 15 million units sold, Grand Theft Auto 3 is the second-best-selling video game on the PlayStation 2. We can safely say that it's one of the games that defined the best-selling video game console of all time, if not an entire console generation. Now, generations away, the game is making a surprise leap to a new platform.
Being the first of two officially PlayStation-exclusive GTA games helped the third numbered entry hit this legendary status. However, what if GTA 3 was also released on other consoles? Would it have had a similar impact? After all, it started development as a SEGA Dreamcast title.
Unfortunately, we can't travel back in time to find out if GTA 3 would've sold even more copies had it been a multi-platform title at launch, or if it could've saved the Dreamcast from going belly up — which ultimately led to SEGA bowing out of the console market. However, now we can at least play it on the now-defunct platform.
Decades after releasing on the PS2, and eventually, the PC and the original Xbox — believe it or not, Microsoft said no to Rockstar Games when the developers offered to make GTA exclusive to the Xbox — GTA 3 is finally playable on the Dreamcast.
According to Youtuber 'The Sega Guru', a developer named SKMP is working on an unofficial port of GTA 3 for the ill-fated Dreamcast using a combination of PC assets and a modded Dreamcast console. As you can see from the video, it's still very early in its development and will likely require a lot of resources.
Unlike remasters and homebrew ports for newer consoles — like what happened to Grand Theft Auto 5 and its Nintendo Switch port — getting GTA 3 to run on a considerably weaker console is a challenge. Officially named the "regta3dc" project, the GTA 3 Dreamcast port has garnered the support of many nostalgic gamers on the internet.
The Dreamcast was released in 1998 but enjoyed a relatively short lifecycle of three years after SEGA ended production in 2001. The console sold 9.13 million units in three years, which isn't half-bad considering it was severely impacted by the release of the original PlayStation and the hype surrounding the PS2.
Many games initially in development for the Dreamcast, like GTA 3, were later rebuilt for other platforms, mainly the PS2. To date, the Dreamcast remains popular among homebrew fans, and since its demise SEGA has stayed out of the console market.
GTA 3 is available to play on modern consoles as a standalone title and as part of the Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition re-release. We're curious to see if this fan-made port project will incur the wrath of Take-Two's legal vultures, but seeing as it doesn't stand to make money, nor does it encroach on the territory of existing products, we hope it'll be allowed to persist.
